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Billie Joe Armstrong and his American Idiot director Michael Mayer took part in a discussion with producer Jordan Roth at the 92nd Street Y Sept. 19, 2010 The event was part of the venue’s “Broadway Talks” series.

While this seems like an outrageous statement, statistics do back this claim somewhat. In the July 2, 2011 edition of the Chicago Tribune, reporter Robert Channick takes a close look at the state of Chicago radio. As he points out in "The Volume of Rock on Chicago Radio Is Quieter These Days," conglomerate Merlin Media recently purchased three bundled stations: WKQX (Q101), WLUP (The Loop), and New York's WXRP, all at a greatly reduced price. Rumor has it that the company may turn Q101 into an all-talk format, leaving only three all-rock stations standing: WLUP, WXRT, and WDRV (The Drive). Stations such as the all-oldies WLS may air some rock as part of their format, but are not classified as "rock" by Arbitron Ratings. Only WDRV remains in the top ten ratings; the rest are either talk, news, urban, or pop stations. Channick quotes Chicago radio veteran John Gehron (current consultant for Merlin Media) as saying that rock radio is struggling in several major markets: "It's not the dominant sound that it was in the '60s and '70s, when rock really was the sound of a generation," he explains. Is the state of Chicago rock radio symptomatic of rock in general?

Starting out as hardcore punks in California in the late ’80s, Green Day have grown into one of the biggest, most successful bands in the world, with Billie Joe Armstrong’s acoustic guitar an increasingly integral part of their sound.

In the early days, however, it was a tough, minimalist and angry sound that colored their gigs and recordings, culminating in their two cutthroat punk indie albums that would surprise any listeners that came to the band in the past few years.